A Dark And Broken Rainy Day
by Athena Writer 24601
Summary: What if Eponine's story was different? What if Marius rescued her off the streets as a young girl? This is the story of a completely different meeting.


Broken, Broken, Broken

Chapter 1

"Get _out_!" the woman screamed.

Eponine Thenardier was shoved out the door into the street, in the rain. No, the woman wasn't her mother. She didn't have a mother, actually. She was almost fourteen, and both her parents were dead. But in wartime, hellish France, nobody really cared. There were plenty of orphaned children out in the alleys, and the rich passed by them quickly, ignoring them or even speeding up as if to not be roped into giving them anything.

The woman was a rich woman who'd grudgingly taken Eponine in for a few days, so she could get some money by working.

"Please, M'dame," she'd begged. "My little brother and sister are starving."

So she'd stayed, but on the second day she'd gotten desperate. That was today. The woman was selfish and didn't pay Eponine nearly enough to feed Azelma and Gavroche. So Eponine had tried to slip a few coins in her pocket, a piece of bread, maybe-and the woman had caught her.

Usually Eponine was excellent at stealing, but today she'd been so desperate that she wasn't careful. So that was why she was out here, shivering, in the icy rain.

She had to get back to her siblings. They were staying in the place that was their house before their parents got sick and died. Eponine hadn't seen them in a day or two, and she was worried. Azelma had been sick, and she was deathly starving, not to mention she was only four years old. There had also been a lot of robberies and murders in the alleys, most of which the Inspector Javert and his fellow officers did nothing to prevent.

Gavroche had promised to take care of Azelma, but then what can a scrawny seven-year-old do against an army of robbers? He really was mature, the deaths of their parents had ensured that, but he and Azelma would undoubtedly be slaughtered by thieves.

Eponine reached the old, crumbling structure that was their house and was immediately met by a crying Gavroche, who jumped into her arms.

"What's wrong, 'Roche?" she asked gently setting him down.

"'Zelma won't wake up!" he sobbed.

Eponine rushed over to Azelma's small, limp form and shook her gently. "'Zelma," she said, and was met only by silence and cold skin. "Azelma!"

"She's dead, isn't she?" whimpered Gavroche.

Eponine burst into tears. "Yes."

They sat there, crying together, for what seemed like hours, before Eponine finally came to her senses. "She was sick, Gavroche. Mama and Papa died from sickness too. We have to leave this house."

"But it's our house!" he cried as she started gathering their meager belongings; a thin coat or two, a rag, a picture of all the Thenardiers in happier times.

"I'm sorry, Gavroche," she said. "But-"

"I hate you!" he screamed. Eponine knew he didn't mean it; but he was distraught by the loss of Azelma. She was shocked too, but Gavroche turned rude and impulsive when he was upset.

"Gavroche-"

"Forget it! I'm leaving!" he yelled. He grabbed a small bag of his and slipped out the door.

"'Roche!" Eponine called, running after him. She chased him through the alleys, calling his name, but she soon lost the small boy.

Eponine found herself in front of a rich apartment home. She slumped against the outside wall of the house, sobbing. She pulled her jacket tighter as the bitter wind and rain pounded, threatening to tear the wisp of a girl to shreds without mercy.

Her hair whipped around her dirt-streaked face as she shivered and coughed. _I'm going to get sick, _she thought miserably. _I'm going to get sick and die just like Mama and Papa and Azelma. _

She hoped Gavroche wouldn't get sick, because the sickness was all over the city. She'd seen it in the alleys; the coughing children, the wheezing adults, the carts that collected corpses, the still bodies whose eyes stared out at nothing.

She wrapped her arms tighter around her torso, feeling her bony, prominent ribcage. She sat and stared across the road, sitting still in the rain. Was this how she was going to die?

If this was the end, she was sad to leave Gavroche out in the world alone.

Eponine was feeling very sleepy. She wasn't sure if she was getting sick or if she was just exhausted, but she slumped over in the side of the street as the darkness started obscuring her vision.

As she put out a hand to steady herself, her head spinning, she heard a door behind her open, and a figure perhaps a little bigger than her stepped out. She heard words, the figure asking things as it neared her, but everything sounded foggy, a million miles away, and she couldn't make anything out.

Then her head hit the wet concrete and everything went black.


End file.
